Coffee, the fountain of youth?
Posted on June 17th, 2008 – 8:15 AMBy Josephine Marcotty
If you like to drink coffee, drink more. Lots more. It probably won’t hurt you and may even save your life, especially if you’re a woman.
Coffee has always been a pretty benign drug for most people. Now it turns out that it may actually reduce the risk of death from heart disease and other causes.
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health studied the histories of 125,000 men and women who reported how much coffee they drank between 1980 and 2004. The more coffee they drank, the less likely they were to die from a heart attack or cardiovascular disease. That was especially true for women. Compared to those who didn’t drink coffee, those who drank 5 to 7 cups per week had 7 percent lower risk for death. The real coffee addicts who drink 4 to 5 cups per day had a 26 percent lower risk of death. The lower risk was mostly related to heart disease, but cancer deaths in women were lower, too, the researchers found.
It’s not the caffeine that does it because they found a similar pattern in the people who drank decaffeinated coffee.
So what’s going on? Antioxidants, they think. Like blue berries, green tea and chocolate, coffee contains antioxidants. Those are the chemicals that snag the free-floating molecules in our bodies called free radicals. Free radicals, created by the body’s natural metabolic processes like breathing and digesting food, are culprits in aging and disease. In particular, they are related to the inflammatory process that causes plaque to build up in our arteries, causing cardiovascular disease.
The authors of the research study, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, say it doesn’t prove coffee is the fountain of youth. It could be something else about coffee drinkers that contributes to their longer lives.
But never mind that. If you’re reading this with a cup of coffee at your side, just think about how how all those antioxidants are running around your bloodstream picking off those nasty free radicals to keep your arteries wide open. And enjoy.
29 Responses to "Coffee, the fountain of youth?"
Finally, I don’t have to feel guilty anymore.
I’m enjoying my morning cup of coffee right now, and after reading this I’m going to get a refill or two! 
YEAH!!!!
I wonder if it will work on rabies. I got bit by a bat the other day and just maybe I can avoid those awful shots through a steady diet of coffee!
“Martha, I’m off to Caribou!”
Did the study also note anything about the participants weights? Maybe the more they drank, especially caffienated, the less they stuffed into their cake holes. Less eating means, well, with the way most Americans eat, less meat wax plugging up arteries.
I doubt this means eat a lot of crap, drink a lot of coffee and rejoice. I guess it is just a factor of substituting something fairly benign for something harmful.
Terrific! I refused to give up coffee as a “bad habit”, now I can keep it as a “healthy habit.”
Great news! Now if only something could be done about the bad breath it leaves….
Reekson has a good point, I tend see coffee as an appetite suppressant in the afternoon. Also, coffee itself has no calories, but those $4 flavored coffee drinks people plow down from Caribou or Starbucks are LOADED.
But it has also been proven to increase chances of miscarriage in women.
I doubt that the results from the study had anything to do with the participants’ health.. since a lot of really unhealthy people drink coffee (and a lot of healthy people do too).
[…] Star Tribune has an interesting story about Coffee and health benefits… I feel […]
Coffee does not increase the risk of miscarriage. One old study raised the possibility of coffee/caffeine contributing to miscarriage, but this was not proven to be the case in future randomized, controlled trials.
This article brought to you by the National Coffee Growers Association…. drink more and they make more. What about the health benefits of a good, clear glass of water?
Should women stick to decaf coffee? I’ve heard anecdotally that caffeine can increase the amount of calcium excreted in urine, which may lead to lowered bone density. I haven’t read any studies one way or the other in a long time, though, so I may be out of date.
I am not going to get to excited about coffee being good for you to drink. Next week they will tell us how bad it is for us… however for now I will us this as an excuse to drink more coffee!
It also helps the health of my colon
This study is utter b.s., no doubt sponsored by the coffee industry. Note the paragraph: “The authors of the research study, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, say it doesn’t prove coffee is the fountain of youth. It could be something else about coffee drinkers that contributes to their longer lives.”
If you want antioxidants, eat your fruits and vegetables. Geez.
This makes me giddy with happiness. Now to see if the story doesn’t change next month……… Stay tuned up!!
Hooray!! I knew it all along
It’s actually decaffeinated coffee that leads to miscarriages.
I like to have my coffee with eggs. But wait, are eggs good or bad for us now? I can never remember ….
Lots of good points here:
- Enjoy everything in moderation,
- Don’t forget to replenish lost fluids (coffee being a diuretic totally dehydrates you - which I would expect to counteract any “fountain of youth” type of affects) with lots of fresh water,
- A recent study has found that more than 2 cups a day can increase the risk of miscarriage in pregnancies less than 20 weeks. I am 33 weeks and enjoy 2 cups a day, with the afternoon cup as a deterrent to wandering to the vending machine for something to satisfy my sweet craving (doubling the health benefit if you ask me!), and
- Do those with bad feelings towards coffee also share the same feelings for tea…another plant that we steep in hot water and enjoy loads of health benefits from???
I think I’ll have another cup!
Don’t get giddy too fast. My cardiologist said “coffee is poison to your blood”. I still drink a couple cups a day because of the alzheimer studies, better safe than sorry. Too much information. People used to be able to live and die without weighing the evidence.
Stat my IV coff
Well, this would be good news, except that there’ll be another study at the end of the year saying that coffee only has beneficial effects when taken with glazed donuts. And then one next year saying that the donuts are healthy, but not the coffee. Then another saying that neither is good, but chocolate milkshakes are. I think it’s actually pretty simple. Stay active and eat a variety of foods in reasonable portions and I think you’ll at least put the odds on your side.
By the way, would 4 cups per day qualify as a coffee addict? I would have said 8 to 10.
I also just Psyciatrist Daniel G Amen cite a recent Harvard study on PBS television showing how caffeine of any kind, and anything more than 2 cups of coffee is linked to brain deterioration and they showed the scans pictures of a coffee brain. Not attractive! The show was called “Change your brain Change your life”. Also, it showed how this brain deficit is linked to alzheimers and depression. Back to blueberries!
[…] Read the full article here, though I didn’t care for the commenter who noted that “anything more than 2 cups of coffee is linked to brain deterioration“. My wife doesn’t need any more ammunition… […]
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